Well, after a long, nearly sleepless night on an airplane, we made it to Haethrow Airport about 11:30 AM London time! From Atlanta, it’s about a 7 & 1/2 hour flight over, for those who are courious.
At Heathrow, our four Tech travelers, including Dr. Jenkins, Beck, Alicia, and myself, joined a great group of about 20 students, and their chaperones, from San Francisco State University. The two young ladies from our group fell right in with their gaggle of excited, mostly female, troup!
We got right to it. Our tour guides didn’t want us to miss anything during our limited time here. First, we had “Tube lessons,” we learned on the fly to navigate London’s extensive Underground rail system.
We went directly to Westminster station, and stepped out staring directly at “Big Ben!” Actually, as we learned, you can’t see Big Ben itself! “What, it’s right there in front of us!” Big Ben is the name of the BELL inside the clock tower. They said this was a learning trip!
we then spent the next few hours walking the Westminster area to Trafalger Square, seeing so many iconic sights, while learning the inside histories such as the Bell! Also, if someone says “mind the gap,” they’ve spent time on the Tube!
we glanced down the street at Westminster Abbey, which we saved seeing for Sunday. We saw an impressive protest rally by Parliment before heading Whitehall past many government buildings including #10 Downing Street. There were these two typically stoic Queen’s Guard soldiers sitting on equally stoic, and very large horses, gaurding the Home Calvary Barracks. And we arrived at Trafalger Square with Lord Nelson, atop another stoic horse high on a column! More about Nelson and a keg of rum later.
After a long day of travel and more fabulous sights and stories, we made it to a nice restaurant at Charing Cross, and met up with about a dozen students and escorts from Marshall University of West Virginia. There, we had the required Fish and Chips dinner. The tour guide informed us that you really want to get this meal in the old fashioned Pub, which we also learned more about.
We then went to our, very nice hotel, for some much needed rest. Well, I think some of us went to bed at a reasonable hour. (I was young once too!)
There is more coming from our Sunday tours, including Windsor Castle!
(I’ll be posting pictures as soon as I get over a technical issue known as “senior citizen\technology function disorder!”)